Shanghai, China – China’s skyrocketing demand for timber to fuel its economic boom is driving illegal logging and contributing to the destruction of forests in Asia and Africa, needed now more than ever to halt climate change, a new environmental report says.

China is now the biggest international consumer of illegal timber, according to the report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which adds that the trade is causing the destruction of vast tracts of forest in developing countries.

Globally, the trade in illegal timber is worth between $30 billion and $100 billion a year, according to an Interpol and United Nations Environment Programme report.

Deforestation is a major contributor to climate change, as the trees that soak up carbon dioxide disappear.

“Illegal logging now accounts for between 15 and 30 per cent of the global legal trade and significantly hampers the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) initiative,” the Interpol-UNEP report said.

Climate change has become one of the biggest, most complex issues of our time. And the warnings from some of the world’s leading scientists are getting louder.

But sceptics remain. Despite the data, many are unconvinced that the science is on target.

So, we ask: Is climate change man-made and, if so, what can we do to stop it?

From the crumbling ice caps of the Arctic to the shifting sands of the Arabian Gulf, Al Jazeera takes you around the world to see first-hand the impact mankind is having on our planet.

Against the backdrop of a major UN climate change conference in Qatar, join Nick Clark as he looks at the efforts that have been made to address climate change, the failures of previous agreements and the challenges that lay ahead.

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…my brother claims that climate change is not “human made”…! that it could be from other reasons, like astronomical, or other!

…i believe in CO2 and the Green House effect…! that is if you don’t! and in “intoxi-c(k)ate” World envi-ronment pollution and fucked up Jungles and Oceans, because of need and greed of a failed World Economy structure logic based on taking anything to make money or even trade! Because Governments do not give enough to live well!...